Malachi's Magnificent Manor
Posted by: Exterminatus (06/17/2019) * F-Rank Repeatable Description “The master has been out of town for a while and his pets are getting restless. They won’t settle down or listen to me no matter what I try. I’ll never get the estate tidied up at this rate! I require the assistance of several spirited individuals who can entertain these rapscallions until they either get tuckered out or settle down.” - Magnolia Mugsworth Journals Faelor (06/19/2019) “The master has been out of town for a while and his pets are getting restless. They won’t settle down or listen to me no matter what I try. I’ll never get the estate tidied up at this rate! I require the assistance of several spiritual individuals who can entertain these rapscallions until they either get tuckered out or settle down.” - Magnolia Mugsworth Upon arrival at Malachi’s estate we were surprised to be greeted by an animated mug, though suddenly the contractor’s strange name made more sense. Magnolia Mugsworth informed us Malachi was away on business and that his pets, a variety of animated objects, were being rowdy in his absence. First Magnolia sent us into the garden to “entertain” a collection of animated swords, axes and staffs around Malachi’s forge. Of course, the only way to tucker out the flying objects was to beat them into submission. The ensuing fight was challenging but with the party’s concerted efforts we overcame the weapons, destroying some of them in the process. Magnolia told us not to worry about repairing them as they would quickly sort themselves out and sent us inside to briefly rest up before our next challenge. On our way to the guest suites Brottor and I were distracted by an open doorway into Malachi’s study, and so the party split up. Whilst Esau, Wes and Iggy left to rest and play cards with some animated scarecrows, Brottor and I scanned Malachi’s bookshelves for interesting tomes. Unfortunately I clumsily knocked over a pot of ink, triggering swarms of mechanical spiders and flying books to animate and block the library exits. They presented me with a blank piece of paper and an ink pen and waited expectantly. Ever quick on the uptake I began hastily writing out an apology letter, but due to nerves my handwriting was so stunningly poor it only served to infuriate the tiny creatures further. At this point the rest of the group arrived in the library having heard the ruckus. The objects began attacking us and, after one more failed attempt, I managed to produce a single piece of paper with the most staggeringly artistic rendition of the word “Sorry” you have ever seen. Seemingly satisified with the beautiful apology note, the books returned to their passive state with no real harm done on either side (excepting a handful of mechanical spiders that Brottor smashed). Again, Magnolia told us not to worry and quickly ushered us on to the next “pet”. Located in a small separate building, this last one was a little different. Curiously there was an altar at the end of the room, despite Brottor finding no religious texts in Malachi’s library. None of us recognised the religion and Magnolia told us the altar was not a pet of Malachi’s - it had moved in only recently and apparently had rather large teeth and a poor temperment. We deliberated the best course of action for a while and settled on luring it out of the building by throwing stones. This was effective and the altar sprung to life, opening up to reveal rows of sharp teeth. We began fighting and although Brottor and Esau’s weapons got stuck to the creature due to some strange gluey secretions, we managed to defeat it with help from Wes and Iggy. With this my first job with the Blue Hoods was complete. Magnolia presented each of us with 250 gold pieces for our work and hurriedly led us to the exit before we could stir up any more chaos in the mansion. Tai Navitus (07/04/2019) Note- Translated into Elvish, Orcish, and Draconic as well. We arrived at an extravagant mansion and were greeted by a cute little animated mug! My party is fairly motley, quiet for the most part except for a strange goblin, Giggles. Though they are dependable enough. We manage to deal with the first group of "pets" two swords and an axe, by playing with them and until they grew exhausted and became inert. The mug Magnolia, lead us further into the mansion to deal with something that had snuck into the manor. Giggles found a strange amulet in the a shed fountain. I investigated it, recognizing it to be a symbol of some forge god. The altar at the back of the shed, seemingly to a different god, comes alive as myself and our ranger, Sylvara, revealing itself to be a mimic. We handled it, avoiding most of its attacks, and Magnolia got excited about the mess to clean up after we eviscerated it! We then exterminated some snakes after a failed attempt to lure them away. We take a short rest so Giggles could heal his Mimic wounds and I managed to convince Magnolia not to dock their pay as Giggles returns the amulet, and Kraven had to run an errand for her, leaving the job early. The last task was exterminating self-repairing mechanical spiders as well as angered papers and quills that had been stirred into a frenzy. Unable to harm them very well with weapons. Giggles manages to move out of the way and I managed to incinerate the majority of the papers with a spell. Giggles is swarmed by the spiders, but manages to land telling blows on the spiders with his fury. The spiders manage to down Giggles, but I managed to blow up the remaining spiders with magic and Magnolia stabilized Giggles. Enna Aloro (07/07/2019) I volunteered for the leadership position this day... god I hope I do this right, I mean... it's what I've wanted but god am I nervous... The job was in town, for a manor of a wizard which seemed simple enough, no long trek or potential ambushes, but yet I don't know the town, might be more crime-ridden than I expected. We got there without a hitch to a beautiful manner which I could only dream of living in, along with the rest of the crew who were there under my wing. We knocked on the door and to our surprise a little kettle answered, but I learned from Salhitani and Zero last time not to patronize the people giving you money. We went inside and sure enough, there were problems aplenty, starting off with some clockwork spiders and some overly friendly sticky notes. No wonder this job was assigned to the new blood, though the paper proved to be a challenge, almost knocking out a few of the fresh blood before my quick thinking and skill with my pan flute charmed some of them down and put them to rest. Would have been embarrassing if it was a public display but it all worked out in the end, I gave some of the others healing potions, that's what a leader does right? after all, I'm nothing with a dead squad behind me... Though I underestimated the crew, some had healing powers of their own so mine was not needed as he healed himself and our other bodyguard, I use that team loosely due to them being the muscle of my group, I do appreciate them being around. Next task was a swarm of poisonous snakes, the ranger had a great idea of charming them but there were more heads than magical prowess available, can't fault him for it and I think it was admirable, would make a good leader if I wasn't around, good work ranger. Proceeding to use force to remove the snakes, I've never seen a man be struck down so quickly as in one fell swoop the swarm consumed him and sunk their fangs in, luckily enough they weren't too interested in a meal and left him be long enough for me to bring him back up and keep it going till it finally fell to a well-aimed rapier kebab on my part. The third challenge included a bow off between the ranger and an angry ballista that seemed to be taking guard, I secretly wanted the rogue to go and try out in the competitions because I was curious about his skills and wanted to see how he could perform but he wanted to leave it to the ranger so to the ranger it would be left. He succeeded with a little bit of inspiration between me and the paladin, making easy work and a mockery of the ballista. The last problem was a bunch of scarecrows that would rather play cards than do their jobs, so me and the ranger decided to join in and challenge them to a game, which they agreed on, eventually both of them left, even though it was just me and him left we clearly wanted to test ourselves and played to finish the game, though unfortunately, time was not of the essence and he fought well, a commendable card player, but I will have my rematch and we'll see eventually.... Till next time. status: Complete under all this are scribbles and notes about all of the people she was within her party, talking about their height, to their appearance to a small little scribble fo notes about what she thinks of them, safely tucked away in her journal Erven Siannodel (07/07/2019) My first job within the Blue Hoods, and might I say was it a strange one. We arrived at beautiful looking manor, one that I’d imagine any person would enjoy living it, especially us F-rankers who are used to sleeping on the floors. It was Riamin, our resident halfling with a mean right hook, who chose to be the leader for this mission, which we were all content with. I decided it would be best to just knock on the front (sorry Fred if that bothered you in any way), and to all of our surprise a sentient pot filled with soapy water greeted us at the door, though this was initially quite shocking, we immediately chocked it up to some magical source that produced this odd entity. Entering the manor as we discussed the details of the job with Magnolia Mugsworth, we were immediately called to attention of the first part of our job; In the dining room, a sentient floating painting of Malachi himself, the owner of this establishment, had been arguing in Elvish with a sentient suit of armour, whose only form of communication was using thieves cant to tap a coded message out. Luckily the members of our party were able to interpret this argument as a heated discussion on whether or not these entities had a soul or not, the painting argued that they didn’t since they were created by magic, whereas the armour said they did. It took a bit of convincing, but we managed to get the painting to see the suit of armour’s point of view and the argument had ceased, each moving back to there resting place. Magnolia thanked us for our service, but then preceded to take us to the outside of the manor where the next part of our job was to be done. Prior to entering the large grounds of the manor we almost immediately heard the problem, what sounded like a large crossbow was going off, and as we exited the manor, we saw just that. Barry the Ballista bored out of its wits was taking firing practice on a helpless flock of pigeons that were nesting on the roof of the manor. It was quite easy to realise that if Barry was unable to be stopped he could easily damage the manor, as such Magnolia saw to that our next job was going to be done, as she hopped away to not be attacked. As the team discussed a plan of attack, Carrion thought it be best to climb up the 20ft tower the ballista was up on to attack it directly with his greatsword. This immediately alerted Barry and started the combat, Carrion does his best to attack Barry, and though he was initially doing well, he was then shoved off of the tower; our leader, Riamin, thought best to climb a wall to attack the ballista directly but couldn’t find footing to get to it; the rest of the party did their best to attack from range and though I didn’t manage to land a single hit during the battle, I did at least provide Barry an excellent target to be baited with. Barry fired off a ballista straight at me, however as my lunar lady guides my actions I just managed to dodge, it looked as if it hit anyone else in the party, they may have not faired as well. It may be fate, but from looking at what this ballista was capable, from the fist sized ballista bolt that burned on contact, I could easily have died from such an attack. Luckily enough, this was the only bolt it could fire off before Carrion managed to climb up the tower again and non-lethally incapacitate the creature. Victory at hand, Magnolia came out once again to congratulate us, however she also informed all of the fighting has awoken a different problem. Just south of the ballista’s tower was a shed, a forge and a workshop, they contained a number of different sentient weapons each like children rowdy and fighting amongst each other. Carrion seeing their behaviour went into the forge, were two swords and a battle axe were play fighting and told them off, informing them of their bad behaviour, and as if like children who’ve been scolded they went back to their resting spots and stayed quiet. Our group then split into to, Carrion and I went to the shed to convince the large halberd to lay down, whereas Riamin, Qlu and Brayden went to the workshop to convince the two quarter staves. I am unsure as to what happened with the second group, however Carrion and I failed to convince the halberd to stand down and a fight broke out. Again, I was unable to land a single blow, and Carrion was taking a barrage of blows, luckily Raimin managed to run in and attack the halberd landing a blow, however not to soon after Carrion was knocked unconscious. The fight continued on and Brayden managed to join in the fray, it seems that the second team succeeding in dealing with their group, and though we had yet to destroy the halberd, Qlu quickly came running in yelling out “patience,” in Elven. Somehow, he had figured out the deactivation word for the weapon, causing it to clang to the ground. As if my only use, I proceeded to use my Lady’s luminous light to heal Carrions injuries and bring him back to us. Seeing us beat and tired, Magnolia offered us a quick rest in the guest rooms, however since there were 5 of us, Qlu got to rest in the master bedroom. Without hesitation Qlu proceeded to unlock a chest in the master bedroom, which immediately cried out in pan, alerting everyone. Magnolia seeing this as a sign of hostility immediately shouts at Qlu to get out and leave, however Carrion and I managed to convince Magnolia that Qlu didn’t mean to cause any trouble, thankfully she accepted that; however, one of us had to now rest in the library as we can’t enter the master bedroom anymore. After an hour’s rest, Magnolia called upon us once more, informing us that something strange had entered the master’s alter room north of the farm fields. Heading out to the back of the manor, we inspected to see what may have entered, however before we truly understood what was awry. As we inspected the alter it transformed into a mimic and immediately began to attack. It was a hard for battle as Qlu was the first to be attacked, seeing as he was the one to awaken the monster. It immediately grappled Qlu on attacking him, however Qlu used some form of magic to teleport out of the way and out of it’s grasps. The battle continued on, I had still yet to land a hit this entire time, but we had the creature on the ropes. I did what I do best and cursed the monster, ensuring that its next hit would be much deadlier, and taking this opportunity Brayden managed to fire an arrow directly into and straight out of the monster’s body… killing it in one shot. It was a hard-fought battle however I thought to myself that this creature may have easily swallowed something it shouldn’t have; as such I asked my Lady for guidance and with the help of the group, I managed to cut the body open revealing a silver holy symbol to Pelor. On consulting with Magnolia, it was discovered that the master of the manor followed Pelor, as such I believed this symbol belonged to him and handed it over to Magnolia. She was extremely pleased to discover that it had been recovered, although somewhat unhappy with how the alter room was left after the battle. Carrion proceeded to ask the scarecrows whom watched over the farm fields, directly south of the alter room, if they saw anything else afoot, however they weren’t much of a help. The only thing we got was that either that was the last of the problems, or that this scarecrow was the true ruler of these lands; safe to say we knew what they were lying about. Heading back inside Magnolia informed us that our task had been completed and gave us our payment for the job. Though I was happy we could help, I felt like I had been near useless that fight. We bid our farewells to Magnolia Mugsworth and the manor, informing them if they ever needed our services again to not hesitate to contact the guild once more. status: Completed